Talk about bad start to political campaigns. From the word go, vengeance has exploded from Manjung to Muar and in every town with an "M" to its name.
Well, almost. It's an exaggeration of course, but you get the point. And in Muar, vengeance has turned into another "V" word: violence, of the ugly kind.
There is enough energy in the animus of our politicians to turn them into independent power producers (IPPs). Times have changed, fellas. There is just no need for more IPPs. Our TNB is doing a good job, anyway. Stop the mudslinging.
It does no one any good. Most certainly to the one who is slinging the mud.
If mudslinging politicians think that they are winning the hearts of the voters, they need to think again. Yes, the voters are crossed, but their "crosses" aren't for the mudslinging politicians' ballot papers. Remember this: an angry voter is a dangerous fella in the polling booth. Try something the voters like, especially the close to six million newbies. They are 18 and a few years older. They have a lifetime before them. They are not their fathers. Yes, they have idealism, but it is the kind that is blended with pragmatism.
What is in your politics for me, they ask? Don't go John Kennedying on them with the phrase "ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country". Instead, these bright young ones will ask the politicians "what can you do for our country?"
Begin there, we tell the politicians. Yes, tell us what your politics can do for the country. These six million lasses and lads want a good education. Tell them how will you give them seats in universities and other institutes of learning without being indebted for the rest of their lives. Would there be jobs when they graduate? Or would they have to cross the Causeway to find them? These are important questions that the answers to which would determine where the cross goes on the ballot paper. Granted, corruption is a national issue.
One ex-banker has gone on record as saying that corruption in Malaysia is endemic. We entertain no doubt about that. But calling it a national issue or an endemic problem doesn't make it go away. Tell us how your party is going to make it go away. Continue on a business-as-usual mode? That will be insanity as Einstein saw it: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Tell us what will change.
There is one more thing that needs to change: the way we conduct politics. We won't be wrong to spot some Einstein insanity here, too. Since we went into election mode in 1959, it has been politics before people. Ceaselessly so. Malaysia is in the state it is because of this "over and over again" party politics. We could have been a better nation.
There was a moment of people-before-politics promise though when during the 14th Parliament, the ruling coalition and the opposition parties signed a memorandum of understanding to work towards some common goals. A welcome result is the Anti-Party Hopping Law.
There should have been more, but ideology stood in the way of mature politics as it does now. Politicians keep telling us that politics is the art of the possible. Don't just tell, show us.